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Bulked-up body, short fuse mind: steroids and rage

Peter Munro

''You start to feel like you are not in your body any more,'' says Mick Moss, a former steroids user. ''It can bring out the aggro.'' Inset: Moss at the 1982 Australian Championships during his steroids period. Photo: Phil Hearne

The rage would come without warning. He once punched through the bathroom wall after failing to fit a tie around his neck, so muscled had it become. Smashing his right fist through the gyprock over something so small.

Little things trigger the anger. If someone is driving too close behind you, you want to pull up and punch their head in … Just yelling out the window is not enough

''I had a very short wick,'' says Aaron, 37. "I would become quite aggressive. If waiting at a set of lights, I would get agitated and frustrated … I would just snap."

He started on steroids when he was 20 to bulk up while playing rugby league. Soon, he says, he was taking the drug in regular cycles ''purely for vanity reasons'' - removing his shirt at nightclubs to show off his toned muscles.

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But with the attention came the aggression - a short temper and fiery impatience at anything that slowed him down. ''It does get you hyped up. I never took it out on anyone else but my patience level was very low and I put that down to the gear,'' says Aaron, who asked us not to publish his surname.

He reckons the combination of steroids and alcohol has played a big role in recent street violence in Sydney. ''You've got this bravado and extra strength, and you mix that with alcohol and these guys are 10-feet tall and bulletproof,'' he says.

''If you know you've got a bad temper and can't handle it, don't do it. You could end up in jail. You could kill somebody.''

Personal trainer and former world bodybuilding champion Mick Moss, 48, tells a similar story of his time on steroids.

''You're very confident and cocky. It can bring out the aggro,'' he says.

''Little things trigger the anger. If someone is driving too close behind you, you want to pull up and punch their head in … Just yelling out the window is not enough.''

Studies show long-term and chronic steroid users are particularly susceptible to increased aggression. Steroids may not be wholly to blame. Some users also might be predisposed to violent behaviour or influenced by their peers.

''The younger you are, the more uncontrollable you are,'' Mr Moss says. ''When you take too much you start to feel like you are not in your body any more - it's not you any more because you can't control it.''

He took steroids in his mid 20s to bulk up for bodybuilding competitions. Ironically, it was only after stopping taking the drug that he had his great success: winning the 2001 Natural Mr World Bodybuilding Championship.

Aaron stopped in his late 20s after about seven years on the gear. ''I don't regret any part of taking it. I was a shy teenager and it boosted my confidence,'' he says now.

''But enough was enough. I came to a point in my life where I decided I had to grow up and didn't want to do it any more.''